Candles
by Angel Descendant
Summary: TYL. Kyoko has a talk with Gokudera about the events two nights ago. Slight 5995.


_For ZiaLiaLis. I love you for being such a good friend for me. And pardon my taste. I just love 5995. xD_

"Candles"

**-****The best way to see divine light is to put out thy own ****candle****-**

_It lights._

"Good evening."

"Y-you're still awake, Kyoko-san?"

Gokudera Hayato was startled when he opened the door to stand guard. Sitting by the entrance to the Tenth's bedroom was none other than the Tenth's lover herself.

"I had been waiting," Sasagawa Kyoko smiled benignly, the three candles lazily flickering as the Storm Guardian closed the door of their room. The chandelier then she held by her left hand as she stood up and led Gokudera to the array of cushioned ornately-clad armchairs. She then laid down the chandelier on the small table. "I was getting a little scared… of the shadows, I mean." She heaved a deep sigh and then pointed her finger around, her giant of a shadow twirling in the feeble light.

The Storm Guardian bit his lip a little before forcing a small simper. "Shouldn't you be sleeping with the Tenth, my lady?" he asked, as he took a seat opposite Kyoko.

She simply shook her head. "He doesn't need me there. I don't want to disturb him."

Gokudera studied his Boss' fiancée intently. There it was, the same hollow visage that he had seen often since the incident two days ago.

He smiled warmly.

"The candles are warm," he remarked, letting his cigarette into one of them. A small wisp of smoke entered the air. Kyoko merely smiled. She had never scolded him of this habit of his, unlike most of the other women (including his sister).

"I'm happy that you think of them that way, Gokudera-kun…"

Her small smile faded and she closed her eyes, and the Right Hand man nearly saw peace in them. A peace that he wasn't able to experience in a long while.

"How's the boss?" he asked finally, his hands carelessly playing with the flame in one of the candles. Kyoko ignored this and merely stared at the eyes of her husband's Right-hand-man. She crossed her legs, her right palm caressing her pale chin. The shadows seem to be getting a little smaller now.

_It flickers._

Her smile doesn't fade as she answers.

"He's sleeping." says she simply, her little hands now on her lap as she tries to straighten her posture. Her long hair suited the fire completely, and burned along with the flickering flame.

"Ah…" he could not say anything more. It must be because of what happened the day before. It had wearied him so, probably. His movements were, after all, almost languid. What can he do? He and the others, after all had done what they can to save their family.

"Your 'ah'… are you tired of it all, Gokudera-kun?" Kyoko murmured, now unsheathing the gun just within the pocket of her robe. The pistol was small, light and silvery-looking. She just examined it, eyes now empty. "Are you tired of lying and telling me that everything is all right?"

His eyes fluttered open. There was she, still eyeing the gun now in her hand. Still awake from the horrors that happened that day. Still unable to sleep from it all. Unlike her husband.

"No," he lied. His eyes never looked away from the gun in her hand as she stared at it thoughtfully. There was never madness embedded in her eyes of molten gold. They were calm… always warm…

No madness… but the eyes he was seeing showed neither calmness nor warmth.

And then a tear ran through her eye. She didn't seem to notice as the trigger finally found her finger.

_It burns._

"Gokudera-kun, I thought that I love him," she said, another tear flowing from her other eye as she now points the gun at his direction. "So I followed him. I gave up my own dreams for his. He loved me too. I know that." The tears rolled from drizzles to a slow shower. "Even if I found out about- about the crimes he commits. Even if I find out how many lives are squandered and tossed away with his own ideals I thought he was _right." _Her grin fades and before long, she hiccupped and her small, choked-up voice had burst.

"He was right," Gokudera protested, wanting to knock the hell out of this stupid woman. For her to be ungrateful when that day he-

"He was wrong. He… _he was never right!_" she retorted. The candles in the room somehow shuddered, almost shunning the noise coming from the woman. "He's sleeping now… _**he's dead**_ because of me. He was wrong in saving me."

_It hurts._

"Kyoko-san…" his words were once more refusing to describe the swelling emotions erupting from within him right now.

"I can still remember. He said that things are going to be okay. That no family's going to disrupt ours. That he won't be leaving anymore. He said such empty promises…"

"And still you believed him."

Her expression barrens, as her eyes widen. He was now looking at her, his serious expression barely even visible now with the candlelight weakening with each tick-tock of the grandfather clock.

The gun fell from her hands, and she barely noticed.

"You still love him, even in death don't you?" he smiled. "You're just taunting me with that gun, aren't you? You just wanted to point it to your temple and shoot yourself."

His words rang hard. The pain in her chest was almost eaten.

"He was right having a Right Arm like you. You've just completely read me," she simpered, and Gokudera was silent.

The flames were almost falling now. The shadows were barely even shadows anymore.

"He was right of having a wife like you. You've completely told me what I was feeling," he replied.

Kyoko merely looked back at their bedroom. Her husband's body would soon be embalmed. It'll be the end. Soon she would lose him from that bed. She wouldn't be able to hear his voice once she lies in that bed. She won't be able to feel his warm touch on cold nights. She won't be able to see his welcoming brown eyes once her own would try searching through the darkness.

_It dies._

"I'm scared of continuing my life without the man I love," she whispered.

"You still want to continue having a risky life like this?" he asked, almost chuckling as he stood up and dusted his suit.

"Am I took weak to continue this, you try to say then?" she laughed along, now blowing all the feebly-lit candles one by one.

"You want to be the leader?" Gokudera surmised. "You want to avenge him. Is that your purpose?"

"If I keep getting lost in that darkness, I won't be able to see the true light. I just want to see a place our Family can call home," she smiled as her hands reach through her robe pocket and fished out a pair of scissors.

His fingers had ribbon the curtains as he tried searching for words again. She was a fool, wasn't she?

Her scissors found hair and snipped. There was another sound, and then another. Soon, the floor where she was standing in was flooded with her amber threads.

"It's morning now," he smiled, as his eyes adjusted to the light. "Will you really begin this morning as my leader, _Juudaime_?"

Sawada Kyoko- no, Sawada Tsunayoshi laughed. The small hands of hers- no, his- find the window pane, the Vongola Ring of the Sky in one finger. His eyes of yellow will soon be brown. His hair of fire will soon be chocolate. His small voice will soon mature.

"Yes… I am after all, the Vongola." His Boss answered, his lips finally finding the peace within the storm as the sun's rays filtered past the pane, past his tear-stained eyes, and past his troubled soul.

_The day, after all, has come._

**Fin.**


End file.
